


and if you close your eyes

by Emmar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Obliviation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 12:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2388902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmar/pseuds/Emmar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape obliviates himself after the events of 1981's Hallowe'en, and is perhaps a little overzealous. Something of a character study in might-have-beens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and if you close your eyes

These are the things he knows:

His name is Severus Snape, and he is twenty-one. He is about to start teaching Potions at Hogwarts. His best friend is dead.

He obliviated himself.

He doesn’t know which memories or why, but he knows it went wrong, somehow, and he knows that he will never again be the man he was before, whether he wants to or not.

\---

Minerva is firmly ensconced in her favourite chair when Albus leads their new Potions teacher into the staff room. She isn’t entirely sure how she feels about it - Albus had explained to her, of course, the whys and hows of Severus’ defection back to the Light, but she isn’t altogether comfortable with it, the vague way he glosses over things she thinks ought to be important, never has been.

Except the Severus Snape who walks into the staff room is not the Severus Snape she last saw when he left school. He’s almost docile as Albus leads him across the room, and by the time they stop and take their seats beside her, her eyebrows are well into her fringe.

“Albus?” she says, that one word full of all the questions she daren’t ask out loud.  
“All in due time,” he murmurs back, and she resists the urge to hiss like the cat she occasionally is. He does get there in the end, after all of the more administrative discussion; sweeps a hand towards Severus and says grandly, “And last but not least, our newest member of staff! Some of you may remember Severus from the Slytherin class of seventy-seven, but it grieves me to say he may not remember you. Severus suffered a recent mishap with memory magic, and while his skills are as sharp as ever, you may have to excuse him if his personal knowledge is a little more spotty.”

Besides Albus, Severus looks as though he’d like the ground to swallow him, but he tilts his chin up and meets their eyes nonetheless, and they respect him more for it - Minerva knows she certainly does.

Albus dismisses them then, and Minerva waits until the room is almost empty before she approaches Severus, who by this point is looking a little bewildered and more than a little spooked by all the attention.

“Professor McGonagall,” he says, though there’s an odd lilting tone to it at the end, like he isn’t entirely sure, and she smiles gently at him.  
“Yes, Severus. _Professor Snape_ , should I say.”

He smiles, then, an awkward fledgling thing she’d only seen a handful of times when he was a child, and she can’t help but smile right back. He opens his mouth, hesistates, and then appears to buck up the courage to speak anyway: “Was I proud, before?”

Minerva can’t help but laugh, quiet and helpless. “Oh yes, my lad,” she says, “yes, you rather were.”  
“I thought so,” he says, thoughtful. “I obliviated myself, you see, and obviously I must have been too proud to think it could go wrong, else I’d have left notes, don’t you think?”  
“I daresay you’re right. Now, let’s be off, you need a good night’s sleep for your first day. And don’t forget, lad, that my door’s always open should you need an ear-- or a stiff drink.”

His smile widens a little then, gains itself a sharp edge she recognises well, and he nods and turns on his heel and leaves.

“I rather like this new Severus,” she says to Albus, and takes a great deal of pleasure from the way he looks as though he’s bitten into an especially sharp lemon.

\---

The door slams shut exactly on the hour, and a moment later the professor sweeps into the room from a side door Harry can’t quite see, robes billowing impressively behind him. He’s tall, sallow-skinned with a big hooked nose and short, well-kept dark hair. His dark eyes pause on each of them in turn as he takes the register, and then he clasps his hands loosely behind his back and speaks.

“Wands away,” he says, though Harry notices most of the purebloods’ wands go up their sleeves or somewhere else easily accessible, so he lays his on the top of his bag, just in case. “I am Professor Snape, and I expect to be referred to as such. I will also answer to ‘sir’ or ‘Professor.’ In this classroom, I will brook no disagreement or disobedience - if I tell you to do something, I expect it done. This is as much for your own safety as my ease. And finally--” here, he pauses and takes a long look around the room, and Harry tries not to squirm, “any attempts to sabotage another’s potion will find you expelled.”

The room is dead silent for a long moment, and out of the corner of his eye Harry sees Malfoy open his mouth.

“Do not think your father’s name carries any weight here, Mr Malfoy,” says the professor absently, without so much as glancing away from where he’s using his wand to direct a piece of chalk.

Malfoy’s mouth closes with a snap, and Ron turns wide eyes to Harry and whispers, “Brilliant.”

“See?” says Fred-or-George, at lunch. “Told you Snape was brilliant, didn’t we?”


End file.
